When Google bought Boston Dynamics last December, the news made headlines, but it was not the first time the Internet giant has invested in DARPA-funded robotics. As part of Robohub’s Big Deals series, we asked Gill Pratt, Program Manager of DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, to shed some light on what DARPA thinks about Google’s robotics acquisitions , and what it might mean to the robotics and open source communities.

Whether man-made or natural — or like Fukushima, a combination of the two — major catastrophic events, while rare, are becoming increasingly costly as human populations worldwide move to urban areas. This is why, in an effort to spur the development of agile humanoid first-responders, the US Department of Defense’s strategic plan identifies disaster response as a priority area, and why it is funnelling tens of millions of dollars into the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

The first competition of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) was a software simulation of humanoid rescue work. The 6 best teams were to be allocated ATLAS robots for the next stage of the challenge, but there’s been an interesting change. Gill Pratt, the DRC program manager, and Nate Koenig, the CTO of OSRF, will be on reddit from 1:00 – 2:00 PM ET today (June 27) to discuss the results of the Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) and the future of the DARPA Simulator with the community.